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ADMESH: An advanced, automatic unstructured mesh generator for shallow water models

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Abstract

In this paper, we present the development and application of a two-dimensional, automatic unstructured mesh generator for shallow water models called Admesh. Starting with only target minimum and maximum element sizes and points defining the boundary and bathymetry/ topography of the domain, the goal of the mesh generator is to automatically produce a high-quality mesh from this minimal set of input. From the geometry provided, properties such as local features, curvature of the boundary, bathymetric/topographic gradients, and approximate flow characteristics can be extracted, which are then used to determine local element sizes. The result is a high-quality mesh, with the correct amount of refinement where it is needed to resolve all the geometry and flow characteristics of the domain. Techniques incorporated include the use of the so-called signed distance function, which is used to determine critical geometric properties, the approximation of piecewise linear coastline data by smooth cubic splines, a so-called mesh function used to determine element sizes and control the size ratio of neighboring elements, and a spring-based force equilibrium approach used to improve the element quality of an initial mesh obtained from a simple Delaunay triangulation. Several meshes of shallow water domains created by the new mesh generator are presented.

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Acknowledgements

The authors were supported by the National Science Foundation grants DMS–0915118 and DMS–1045151. The authors would also like to give a special thanks to David Dibling for his assistance in creating the figures in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science, The Ohio State University, 470 Hitchcock Hall, 2070 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH, 43210, USA

    Colton J. Conroy, Ethan J. Kubatko & Dustin W. West

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  1. Colton J. Conroy
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  2. Ethan J. Kubatko
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  3. Dustin W. West
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Correspondence to Colton J. Conroy.

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Responsible Editor: Sergey Danilov

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Multi-scale modelling of coastal, shelf and global ocean dynamics

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Conroy, C.J., Kubatko, E.J. & West, D.W. ADMESH: An advanced, automatic unstructured mesh generator for shallow water models. Ocean Dynamics 62, 1503–1517 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-012-0574-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-012-0574-0

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